More people are becoming aware of the need to exercise in order to maintain or improve their health and fitness. Accordingly, increasing numbers of people can be found exercising outdoors (e.g., walking, running, biking) and indoors (e.g., on treadmills, stationary bikes, ellipticals). There are advantages and drawbacks to exercising outdoors. Similarly, there are advantages and drawbacks to exercising indoors. For instance, exercising outdoors provides a person with varied scenery and terrain. However, a person's schedule, inclement weather, and other factors may prohibit the person from exercising outdoors. In such circumstances, the person may find it more convenient to exercise indoors. Unfortunately, some people find that frequently exercising indoors can become monotonous due to the lack of variation in scenery and terrain.
In an attempt to make exercising indoors more enjoyable, various exercise devices and systems have been developed to more closely simulate exercising outdoors. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,450,922 discloses an exercise system that includes a route computer mounted on a bicycle. When a user rides the bicycle outdoors, the route computer collects data about the ridden route. When the user desires to ride indoors, the bicycle and rout computer can be connected to a base controller and a resistance unit. The base controller can use the data collected by the route computer to adjust the resistance provided by the resistance unit and thereby simulate the previously ridden outdoor route.
Other exercise devices and systems that simulate outdoor exercise experiences are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,424, U.S. Pat. No. 6,749,537, U.S. Pat. No. 6,921,351, U.S. Pat. No. 7,549,947, U.S. Pat. No. 7,637,847, U.S. Pat. No. 7,645,212, U.S. Pat. No. 8,029,415, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,857,731.